The rate of travel varies according to circumstances. With an
unfavourable wind, or little wind, they seldom travel more than five
miles an hour. At other times, when the wind is favourable, they will
cover fifteen to twenty miles per hour. When on the wing it is certain
that a distance of 1,000 miles may, in particular cases, be taken as a
moderate estimate of flight, and whilst, probably, it is often much
less, it is sometimes much more. Their height of flight has been
variously estimated at from forty to two hundred feet. "A dropping from
the clouds" is a common expression used by observers when describing the
apparition of a swarm.
It will not be denied that the presence of locusts in force constitutes
a terrible plague. They make their appearance in swarms and eat up
everything. It is wellnigh impossible to estimate the number in a cloud
of locusts, but some idea may be formed from the fact that when they are
driven, as sometimes is the case in a storm, into the sea and drowned,
so many are washed ashore, that it is said by one observer that their
dead bodies formed a bank of nearly 40 miles long and 300 yards wide,
and many feet in depth, and the stench from the corruption of their
bodies proceeded 150 miles inland.
When a swarm of locusts temporarily settles in a district, all
vegetation rapidly disappears, and then hunger urges them on another
stage.
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